3 Veteran Pitchers Worth Targeting in Fantasy Baseball

John Lackey displayed some swing-and-miss stuff in 2016, and he's being glossed over in early fantasy drafts. Which other veterans are worth checking out for season-long leagues?

The age of a player can rightfully
dictate a lot about the outlook we give on their expected production
for the upcoming season.

Youth is exciting, but chasing after the
potential breakout season is a risky endeavor. There's risk in staring at the ceiling while overlooking what falling on the
floor could look like.

Everyone's tolerance for taking on risk at the
draft table will vary. However, we can all agree that trying to
isolate value players throughout a season-long draft is a continual exercise.
The age of players is one such ticket to finding some of those
possible values in all spots along the draft board.

In that vein, here are three older pitchers, each over the age of 30, who can be productive fantasy assets in 2017.

Cole Hamels, Texas Rangers

Over the last nine years, Cole Hamels has
proven himself to be among the most reliable starters in baseball.
During that span, he's answered the bell for an average 31.8 starts
and 210 2/3 innings per season.

The 2016 campaign was his first full
season spent solely in the American League. And even though the results
were mostly good, there are some oddities within the underlying
numbers. Coupled with turning 33 years old in December, Hamels is
currently ranked just outside the top-20 starting pitchers in the
consensus rankings on
Fantasy
Pros
. His ADP in early National Fantasy Baseball
Championship (NFBC) drafts is presently 19th among pitchers.

A review of last year shows Hamels
posting a ground-ball rate of 49.6 percent, easily his highest rate since 2011 and good for 17th among qualified starters. His
usage of the cutter was at a career-high 23 percent, up more than 8
percentage points from the prior season. Despite some changes in his
pitch selection and batted-ball profile, Hamels once again posted a
near-elite swinging strike rate of 12.2 percent, right in line with his 12.4 percent career figure.

However, there are a few things on the
negative side of the ledger. Walks were up -- way up, in fact. After
walking 5.5 percent of batters faced in 2013, Hamels saw his
percentage of base on balls allowed jump to 7.1 percent each of the
next two seasons. Last year, the rate of free passes ballooned up to
9.1 percent, 13th-highest among starters. Some of that may be due to Hamels adjusting to the American League, but whatever the reason, the increase in walks is an issue.

Perhaps the oddest occurrence for
Hamels was the disappearance of pop-ups. At just 4.1 percent -- way
off his career rate of 10.8 percent -- Hamels tied for second-smallest infield fly-ball rate among starters. In 2015, Hamels induced pop-ups at a rate that was the 14th-highest among
starters.

Last year ended on an ugly note,
unfortunately. After throwing a gem -- 8 innings, 2 hits, 8 strikeouts and no walks) against the Cleveland Indians on August 25th, Hamels owned a 2.67 ERA across
168 2/3 innings. Hamels was subsequently rocked by the Seattle Mariners in consecutive starts, and his year came to an end
following an ugly postseason start -- 6 runs and 1 strikeout over 3 1/3 innings) against
the Toronto Blue Jays. Over his final seven starts, a span of 35 1/3 innings, Hamels was taken for a 6.75 ERA.

Aside from a spiked walk rate, Hamels
was successfully navigating his way through a new league until the final month. All of this while revamping his
pitching arsenal, welcoming a new starting catcher in Jonathan Lucroy after an August 1st trade, and dealing with the sixth-ranked home ballpark for
run production, according to
ESPN's
MLB Park Factors. Even though Hamels just squeaked by in reaching
200 innings and 200 strikeouts last year, it's an achievement that
only eight others have accomplished each of the last two seasons.

John Lackey, Chicago Cubs

John Lackey is entering his age-38 season, coming off a career bests in strikeouts per nine innings (8.60) and swinging-strike rate
(11.5 percent). Those stand in stark contrast to his career averages
of 7.23 and 9.1, respectively. After posting his best ERA season
(2.77) with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2015, Lackey put together a
solid 3.35 ERA as a member of the Chicago Cubs. During the postseason,
he started Game 4 in all three series, but he was only asked to throw 13 total innings, posting a lackluster 4.85 ERA while still fanning a dozen
batters.

The Cubs' historically elite defense
allowed four of the team's starters to finish in the top eight of BABIP
against. Lackey ranked sixth with a tidy
.255 figure. Wrigley Field was indeed a friendly locale for him. Over
110 innings at Wrigley, Lackey compiled a 2.62 ERA and microscopic .201
batting average against.

On the road, opponents for picked up
nearly 30 percentage points of batting average and tagged Lackey with a 4.37 ERA
across 78 1/3 innings. However, a dozen of the 38 earned runs allowed
while wearing the visiting gray uniform came in April. In other
words, nearly 32 percent of Lackey's damage allowed on the road came
in two of his first four starts of the year. From May through
the end of the season, Lackey produced a 3.09 ERA over 25 total
regular season starts, amounting to 163 innings.

Since missing all of 2012 with Tommy
John surgery, Lackey has pitched nearly 794 innings with a 3.35 ERA,
compared to a 4.10 ERA from 2002 to 2011. Even while aging very
gracefully, Lackey managed to be the only Cubs qualified starter who
didn't win 15 games. FantasyPros are ranking Lackey in the low 30s
while NFBC drafters are clicking on his name after nearly 40 other
starters are off the board.

J.A. Happ, Toronto Blue Jays

On the surface, there is very little
reason to be interested in J.A. Happ, a pitcher entering his age-34 season
with a career mark of 7.62 strikeouts per nine innings and having never reached the 200-inning plateau. In fact,
he fanned a lowly 7.52 hitters per nine innings last season, and the Steamer projection system
only likes him to whiff 7.67 batters per nine this season.

Thankfully, there's plenty of
reason to believe the projection is wrong -- possibly very wrong.

That's because Happ has proven himself
capable of spiking his strikeouts upward in a big way within a
season. In 2015, the Mariners moved him to the Pittsburgh Pirates midseason, meaning tutelage from highly-respected pitching coach Ray
Searage. Prior to the deal, Happ had only struck out a total of 82
batters in 2015 over 108 2/3 innings. Over his final 63 1/3 frames of the campaign, he raised the
Jolly Roger often, going 7-2 with a 1.85 ERA and 69 strikeouts -- more than one per inning during that span.

Last year was a highly successful
northern reunion between Happ and the Jays, his employer from
2012 to 14. Happ threw a career-high 195 innings and was a 20-game
winner with a 3.18 ERA. In his first 13 starts, Happ somehow only
managed 5.8 strikeouts per nine innings. Then, starting with a visit
to the Philadelphia Phillies, the team that drafted him back in 2004, Happ went on
a tear. He won nine of his next 10 starts, putting
together a 13-1 record with a 2.80 ERA and 8.8 punchouts per nine innings over the
remainder of the regular season.

Despite throwing heat that only gets up
in the low-90s, Happ is beating hitters by exploiting a very wide
gap in the vertical movement between his four-seam and two-seam
fastballs, as Eno Sarris
masterfully
outlines
on FanGraphs.

Those are impressive skills and numbers, which are
available late in drafts. Happ is going around pick 170 in NFBC drafts, just
outside the top-40 starting pitchers. FantasyPros rankers have him
buried in the mid-40's among starters, making him a pretty nice value pick.